Incremental stiffness and electrical contact conductance in the contact of rough finite bodies.

If two half spaces are in contact, there exists a formal mathematical relation between the electrical contact resistance and the incremental elastic compliance. Here, this relation is extended to the contact of finite bodies. In particular, it is shown that the additional resistance due to roughness of the contacting surfaces (the interface resistance) bears a similar relation to the additional compliance as that obtained for the total resistance in the half-space problem.